RECAP: ‘Lanterns’ Episode 6 — “Bad Optics”

After the thrilling climax of episode 5, Lanterns Episode 6, “Bad Optics,” is much less exciting than its predecessor. The narrative is returning to 2026 for the first time since the premiere. Lanterns Episode 6 picks up the mystery that began after the death of Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), adding context to the hours that preceded his untimely demise.

In 2026, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), who had refused the ring 10 years earlier, is now an architect designing panic rooms. Lanterns Episode 6 opens with John pitching his next big idea: a panic room the size of a football field that can safely house 20,000 people in the event of the next cosmic-level catastrophe. The board is ready to pull the trigger, but since the military holds the purse strings, John will need to schedule a meeting to pitch the colonel as well.

Following his meeting, John receives a phone call from his mother, Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones), who says she’s been in contact with Hal Jordan, who now lives in Rushville, and that he wants to apologize. John makes it clear that he has no affection for his mother, yet he still gets upset by the idea that she’s been talking to Hal. He immediately hangs up on her and drives straight to Rushville.

Lanterns Episode 6 has a huge continuity error.

Upon entering the diner in Lanterns Episode 6, John sits down at Hal’s booth and stares him down. Hal sits across from him unflinching, and finally John prompts him for the apology, but Hal has no idea what he’s talking about. When Hal claims to have taken the fall for them 10 years ago, John pushes back, claiming that Hal was responsible and rightly paid the price. Hal reminds John that he wasn’t the only killer sitting at the table. John punches Hal in the face, breaking his nose, and walks out.

John arrives at home and has barely had time to sit down before his phone rings. On the phone is Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald). Hal has died. John heads right back to Rushville, and we’re treated to the image from the end of the premiere. John sits on the bleachers at the high school football field; the same spot where he first investigated the death of multiple aliens in Rushville.

It’s worth pointing out that now Lanterns Episode 6 has a huge continuity error. In the premiere, John looks for the ring on Hal’s finger and is surprised to see that it’s not there. The problem with that is that John stripped him of the ring 10 years ago after defeating the Manhunter, Zoey Macon (Poorna Jagannathan). John gives it to Lianna (Laura Linney) at the end of Lanterns Episode 5.

John and Sheriff Kane team up to try and solve Hal’s murder.

Now we know that neither John nor Hal is the Green Lantern; the mystery instead is “who killed Hal Jordan?” John decides to stick around because the answer may be important. He can’t crash at the motel because after the manhunter destroyed it, it was never rebuilt. Instead, he crashes at Hal’s place and even feeds his carnivorous house plant, Earl.

The next morning, John and Sheriff Kane sit at the diner discussing Hal’s murder. It’s made clear early on that Hal had been dating the now-divorced Sheriff Kane and spent his free time going door-to-door trying to make amends for the events of ten years prior. Sheriff Kane notes that the broken nose and murder didn’t really surprise her because everyone hated him.

The waitress, Maggie (Hannah Christine Shetler), overhears their conversation and chooses not to offer up the information that John had been there the night before with Hal when he broke his nose. Hal’s last words to John in Lanterns Episode 6 had been not to tell anyone that he had come to see him.

John runs into some trouble while making his way to a giant Green Lantern call signal in Lanterns Episode 6.

John isn’t sure why Hal had warned him that way, or who he can trust. So John, eager to find out exactly what happened to Hal, offers to go with Sheriff Kane to see the medical examiner for the results of the autopsy.

After being deputized by Sheriff Kane, the two head to the morgue and learn that Hal was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head at point-blank range. The broken nose is fresh enough that the M.E. can’t determine exactly when it happened but knows it was within just a few hours of Hal’s death. The M.E. gives Sheriff Kane a bag containing Hal’s belongings, including a key to a storage unit, and the pair head off on the next leg of their investigation.

Lanterns Episode 6 continues with Sheriff Kane and John opening the storage unit to find a voice-activated vault inside. John’s plan to use Hal’s voicemail backfires when the vault recognizes it’s only a recording and threatens consequences if any further attempts to open it fail. As they’re leaving, Sheriff Kane invites John over for dinner that night.

After grabbing beer for dinner, John makes his way to a giant Green Lantern call signal modeled after Batman’s signal in Gotham City. He turns it on to call Green Lantern but is immediately approached by Sheriff Kane’s ex-husband, Billy Macon (Jason Ritter). Billy, surrounded by a handful of friends, tells John to turn it off because the Green Lantern isn’t welcome in Rushville.

Sheriff Kane arrests John for the assault of her ex-husband.

When John refuses to turn off the signal, Billy threatens him and gives him three counts. On three, Billy’s goons attack, and John makes quick work of them and Billy. As they lie on the ground licking their wounds in Lanterns Episode 6, John gets back in his truck and leaves with the signal still turned on.

At dinner, the conversation turns a bit lighter with John catching up with a now-teenage Noah Macon (Shea Pritchard). During the dinner, the phone rings and Sheriff Kane returns to the table after taking the call and arrests John for assaulting her ex-husband. It’s clear she doesn’t want to do it, but with the town having no special love for John, it’s all about optics.

When John takes his one phone call, he asks his brother and business partner, Marcus (Jared Grimes), to use the company account to wire him bail money. Marcus is concerned because the colonel is supposed to show up any time. John brushes him off and requests the money again.

The waitress from the diner tries to blackmail John in Lanterns Episode 6.

Shortly after that, the new Green Lantern, Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), lands at the prison to talk to John. John knows that they’re going to cremate Hal Jordan and insists that they give him a burial more fitting for the Green Lantern. He needs Guy to smuggle Hal’s uniform and decommissioned ring out of the facility on Oa so Hal can be properly buried with them. Guy is unconvinced but goes along with it.

After John makes bail and leaves, he heads back to Hal’s house, where Maggie is waiting for him. She reminds him that she kept his secret at the diner about being there the day of the murder. She even believes that she’s covering for the murderer himself. John sets her straight, but Maggie reveals her true intentions.

Maggie, a girl whose father died when the motel was destroyed, holds John and Hal personally responsible for the destruction and the loss of life. That’s not surprising, as it seems that everyone holds them responsible. Maggie tells John her silence about his presence at the diner will cost him over $500,000; the total damage done to Rushville ten years ago.

Hal’s funeral in Lanterns Episode 6 is an extremely small affair.

At the funeral in Lanterns Episode 6, Hal Jordan’s former love interest, Carol Ferris (Amie MacKenzie), known in the comics as Star Sapphire, shows up and asks John to read the already-prepared eulogy to lend it more bravado. John is hesitant to read her words aloud, but Carol insists and clarifies that she didn’t write them. John takes the paper, agreeing to read it for her.

John stands to read the eulogy: a call for thanks to the many guests and dignitaries, including the president himself. Hal’s self-written eulogy reaches only two other people: Carol Ferris and Sheriff Kane. No one else shows up; not Noah, not any of the countless people he saved ten years ago, not even Guy Gardner is willing to show up for the disgraced former Lantern.

John has always had a complicated relationship with Hal. It begs the question, “why go through the song and dance of a funeral and burial for someone that he wasn’t going to miss?” The answer comes in the last scene of Lanterns Episode 6. It’s later that night, and John stands at Hal Jordan’s grave. At this point, Marcus calls him with the colonel sitting next to him, ready for John’s pitch. When Marcus hands him the phone, the colonel doesn’t give John a chance to explain his absence before hanging up and walking out the door.

Lanterns Episode 6 fails to keep its timeline and storylines straight.

With only the light from his truck’s headlights, John begins digging in Lanterns Episode 6, attempting to unearth the former Green Lantern’s body. When he finally reaches the casket, John opens it, but only long enough to reach inside and grab the decommissioned ring that Guy had provided. When John taps it on the headstone, the ring informs him that there’s only 5% battery remaining. Without wasting any more time or battery, John summons the holographic Hal stored in the ring, who looks on at Hal Jordan’s lifeless body in the casket just as credits roll.

Lanterns Episode 6’s departure from the 2016 storyline involving the manhunter should be a refreshing change despite its much slower pace. Unfortunately, there’s a huge continuity error right at the beginning of the episode. As stated before, we know that John’s first move after finding Hal’s lifeless body is to check his finger for the ring and be surprised to see that it isn’t there.

This isn’t some minor continuity error. This changes the entire landscape of Lanterns. The premiere set up a very interesting multi-era mystery: one involving the death of aliens on a football field in 2016, and the other involving the death of the Green Lantern at the same field in 2026. Instead, after establishing that premise, Lanterns gives us four episodes in a row that don’t even reach 2026.

When the narrative finally does return to 2026 in Lanterns Episode 6, the ring scene from the murder is completely missing. There’d be no reason for them to include it. After all, Hal Jordan stopped being the Green Lantern ten years ago when John returned the ring to The Guardians. It’s a massive failure of the series to keep its timeline and storylines straight.

Perhaps even worse than Lanterns Episode 6 completely breaking the timeline in half is the logic used to deal with Hal’s ring. Lanterns Episode 6 has the audacity to claim that Guy Gardner went to Oa to grab Hal’s ring and uniform and smuggle them back to Earth, despite having no really good reason to.

Even bolder than that, the Guardians have set the precedent that they know what their Lanterns are up to. When Hal visits Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen), Lianna knows about it. When Bernadette appeals to the Guardians to consider John for the role, Lianna explicitly states that she’s keeping an eye on him. It’s unfathomable to consider that Guy Gardner could walk into the facility on Oa and leave with Hal’s uniform and ring, with the Guardians none the wiser.

We’re closing in on the final stretch of Lanterns’ inaugural season. Unfortunately, with the most exciting storytelling left behind in 2016, it’s hard to imagine the last few episodes will live up to what came before. With a continuity error the size of Rushville and horribly flawed logic being used to solve the much less interesting mystery of Hal’s death, Lanterns has a tall order if they hope to rescue what’s left to come.

Lanterns Episode 6 is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes airing weekly on Sundays.

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